


In 2013

by vulpineRaconteur



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Mild Gore, the Night Vale Public Library
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 04:43:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/948758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulpineRaconteur/pseuds/vulpineRaconteur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tamika Flynn grows up and becomes who--and what--she is meant to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In 2013

In 2013, Tamika Flynn steps out of the Night Vale Public Library on her own two feet.

The townspeople celebrate her, parents thankful that she brought their children out safely, holding her upon their shoulders as they carry the stony-faced child to the feet of the City Council. Those enigmatic figures praise the girl and command every Night Vale citizen to give her five American dollars.

A member of the Night Vale school board approaches Tamika and takes the completed sticker sheet from her tight right fist. She is given A grades to all English classes in perpetuity.

Night Vale's official executioner comes and takes the librarian's withered head from Tamika's limp left hand and places it in the cemermonial incinerator.

Tamika watches it burn, silently.

In 2019, Tamika graduates high school valedictorian. She spends the summer interning at the Carlos Baldwin Memorial Research Facility, then leaves Night Vale for college out of state in the fall. Most of Night Vale is proud of the cheerful girl who claimed victory over the librarians in her adolescence, though none can say for sure what she will major in at school. Something to do with science?

The summer of 2021 sees Tamika return to Night Vale for a week or so, when she mostly catches up with old friends and avoids the plague of psychic salamanders. She complains of frequently being tired, and has recently started wearing spectacles. Her studies are going well. Carlos Baldwin's ghost hints that there is a job waiting for her at the research center, once she has her degree. She is grateful, but politely declines.

By the glow of the lights above the First Church of the Glow Cloud (built where the Arby's once ceased to be), Tamika goes, unseen, to the site of the Library, dark, shuttered, and looks. She is twenty years old and her fingernails itch.

2028 sees Tamika Flynn return to Night Vale for good. The golem housing Carlos Baldwin's essence is the first to see her mid-sized sedan pulling into the parking lot of the library. He approaches her, and they exchange greetings. He would shake her hand with his massive clay paw, but she is carrying a box with knickknacks and papers inside. He sees her MA diploma tucked in the side, but the field of study is out of sight.

"So Dr. Flynn," he says, "are you in Night Vale to stay?"

She presses back a strand of hair that has slipped from her elegant, serious bun. She removes her glasses, allowing them to hang around her neck. "Oh yes," she tells him. "There is so much for me to do."

In 2013, there were three weeks that lived in eight hours. Inside the Night Vale public library, only the Ingloried Ones could find food and water, could keep their humanity. As the only Ingloried child in Night Vale, Tamika Flynn cared for the others, gave them what they needed, guarded the library from them.

Over the loudspeaker, Tamika was summoned.

The head librarian reached to her, their ruined fingers all callus and bone. "Give us your sticker chart."

She handed it over, trembling. The chart was examined, marked, then returned.

"We are dying, Ingloried One," the librarian rasped, in a voice that was not a voice. "The City Council has grown hubristic, and the librarians cannot go on. But Night Vale needs us. This town will never win against those what would destroy it, but with a library, they will also never lose. The time is now, child. Take us away."

Tamika pulled the paper-cutter blade from her belt and brought it down on the librarian's feathered neck. They shrieked, still living, and Tamika chopped again and again into the sinuous flesh, sawing and hacking. She may have been twelve, but Tamika was strong. Books are heavy, after all.

She was not sure the thing was dead until thick warm light spread across its corpse from the setting sun, pouring through a returned window. Tamika took their head, yanking to dislodge what connections remained. The face was already becoming once again human-like, the expression of one only sleeping. She tangled her fingers into the long hair, sure not to lose her grip.

Then Tamika Flynn lead Night Vale's youth from the library.

**Author's Note:**

> When I finished episode 28, I couldn't shake the image of Tamika Flynn, conqueror of the library sharing her knowledge. I couldn't shake the image of organized, helpful people in Night Vale, being librarians in a town where librarians aren't allowed. The City Council is an old and malevolent force. What have they to fear from librarians? What do librarians have to offer us against them? And what sort of child would defeat them?


End file.
